


One Step at a Time

by stripped-down-to-skeletons (and_the_devil_laughs)



Series: Kyuteuk [1]
Category: Kpop - Fandom, Super Junior
Genre: Dancing, Gen, Injury, One sided, Trauma Recovery, a little bit of self hate? I dont know?, auto accident recovery, his dancing is suffering, if you squint the is pre, kyuhyun isn't happy that he's not healing as fast as he wants, leeteuk helps tho, so he's suffering a bit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-22
Updated: 2016-05-22
Packaged: 2018-06-10 03:00:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6936565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/and_the_devil_laughs/pseuds/stripped-down-to-skeletons
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kyuhyun has been struggling with his injuries, and if he can't dance, how can he justify being a part of a group? It takes a special hyung to make him see reason.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Step at a Time

**Author's Note:**

> So, there are some Kyuteuk shippers after all! This can be seen as a pre-whatever to a relationship, but I intend this piece to stand alone (for now).  
> Show me some support if you like it!

 

It's been a _year_. One whole year. Twelve months. 365 days of pain and sweat and a lot of tears. For all his work, the aches in his legs and spine and everything else effected by the way his vehicle flipped, Kyuhyun thought that maybe he'd be in a better place.

The image of himself in the mirror is still a daunting one. The studio turns him into a reflection of nothing but what he cant accomplish. He used to be proud of what he could watch himself do – and now, he's slumped against the wall like a sandcastle dissolving in mild weather.

He was hoping that he would be more recovered than he is now, with at least something to show for the work he's been doing. He wasn't expecting to run a marathon or win a dancing competition, and he wasn't dumb enough to think that he would be the exception to suddenly have a miraculous over-night healing. He already survived, something the doctors and the members and his parents all thought was impossible – the world doesn't grant a second miracle.

Maybe he wouldn't be able to dance as fluidly as before, or maybe it would be hard, but he should have been able to at least throw a decent kick, right? All of his work should have amounted to a good, solid kick that didn't leave him aching for the next half hour.

Apparently, even that was too much to ask for. He tried sparring with Sungmin earlier, and in hindsight it was a bad idea (he doesn't know why he thought it would be a good idea to spar with a black-belt). His ankle landed the wrong way after only one kick, and he had to tap out as soon as he was on the ground. Not even ten seconds in, and the match was called.

Eunhyuk gave him a playful shove, and Sungmin smiled and apologized and no matter how much his hyungs would humor him, he always felt like the end of some joke that he would never understand, no matter how many times it was explained.

He doesn't even want to consider what Leeteuk must think – what he must see every time Kyuhyun fails at something as simple as _footwork_. The fact that he's thinking too hard on his eldest hyung is also something he doesn't want to think about.

The bottom line is that Kyuhyun _should_ have been doing better, feelings and hurt ego pushed aside. He should have doubled his hours in rehab, should have taken more care with his exercises at home and god forbid he should have _tried_ to push through the pain until there simply was none.

The truth is, is that Kyuhyun goes a little harder on himself than even the Execs and CEOS and managers ever really could be. After all, that's what pushed him to audition, to sing, to dance, to advance so quickly that it only made sense to toss him into the national spotlight after only six months. What they demanded, he met with an ease most couldn't manage. What he demanded of himself, he would never be able to reach, no matter how far he reached.

The Cho Kyuhyun he knows got him into Super Junior, so why couldn't he move past such a stupid think like fractured bones?

Kyuhyun shook his head; even to him, his logic sounds too far off the path to even be considered reasonable. In his logical brain, in his reasonable side, he knew that the injuries he over came were far worse than many would bounce back from as quickly as he did. He knew this, but he also knew that he wanted to work harder and heal faster and damn it if he couldn't force the laws of medicine to bend to his schedule.

He shook his head, exhausted by his own never-ending train of thought that always seemed to loop back to the same conclusions. Looking up to the clock, he let out a frustrated sigh. It was almost midnight, and last time he checked it, it was only 10 PM.

He either blacked out or spent two hours doing _nothing_ but fussing over why his legs wouldn't just _heal_. As he'd caught himself doing so a lot more recently, he assumed it was the latter. He stood up, stretching every part of his body in the process. He was met with a familiar soreness that just wont go away, and the tender feeling in his ankles that remind him that he'll never feel quite the same on his feet as he once did.

He goes over to the boombox in the corner of the dance studio, lit with fluorescent lighting that flattered _no body_. He thinks back to an article he read online, about how torn muscles and ligaments might heal, but sometimes are never able to handle the bare minimum of weight. He tries not to think about the unnerving feeling in his own ankles.

Still, that wont keep him from trying to force himself to heal. He presses play, green lights forming _Track 1_ blinking to life as the box fills the room like an amphitheater.

The worst part, he thinks, is forgetting the old dances. The ones he knew by heart. _Don't Don_ used to flow from his limbs like words from his tongue, but now?

The waves of grief crash over his head the second time he tried his dancing parts, and _fell_ to the wood panel dance floor.

 _Oh,_ so this is why he had given up. This, being each misstep that lit hot wires up his muscles dumped him on the floor each and every time he tried to put his best foot forward. And each god damn fall is like a jack-hammer on full-force on his bones, to the wrists that have to catch him every time a spin turns into a tumble.

The guilt and sheer embarrassment tint his skin and his shaking hands and the echoes of the music blend into each other as soon as the song repeats its self, and it's like being trapped with a devil that taunts him with everything he was and all he knows he'll never be.

Never again.

He didn't really grieve for himself, not in the beginning. Sure, he'd cried, but mostly out of pain. Mostly from the cast that was forced onto his limbs, for the way they held him too tightly and for the burning of every fracture burst into whenever he moved too fast. He cried because his body hurt, and now he's crying because his heart hurt.

He pulled his legs, crossing his arms over them as a few soft tears streaked down his tired face. He sniffled, a pathetic and small sound coming out of him like he was trying not to be heard.

Who, exactly, would hear him?

“Kyuhyun…?”

Obviously, it was Leeteuk. It _had_ to be Leeteuk.

The world didn't owe Kyuhyun another miracle, so it demanded some sort of pay. Even if it was his dignity.

“Oh… hyung,” Kyu wiped his eyes, trying to steady his breath and that tight feeling behind his throat before he tried to meet Leeteuk's eyes. “I, um, was just practicing...”

Leeteuk was across the studio, dressed sensibly in a black tank top and plain pants and dance shoes. The look – _that_ look, the sorrowful one, was what Kyuhyun saw as he stood, and it made him feel sick and more pitiful than he already felt.

“It doesn't look like that's what you were doing.”

Kyuhyun turned off the music, and the quiet is almost too much, weighted too heavily with all the things he knows fill their minds. Why he was alone, crying, withdrawn – why Kyuhyun had more or less been avoiding him whenever its possible.

“Well, it's what I was trying to do.”

Kyuhyun busied himself, picking up his bag, his shoes, his phone and all the wraps that he uses on his legs on a daily basis. The wraps suddenly feel like a burden, a shameful secret that no one was ever supposed to see or know about. He stuffed them into his bag instead of wearing them, like his personal trainer and rehab doctor both told him to do.

Leeteuk had been quiet as he watched Kyu make himself busy. “Kyuhyun, aren't you supposed to be wearing those?"

It was a dumb question to ask – _obviously_ , he was supposed to wear those. Leeteuk knew that.

“Not all the time,” Kyu said, slinging his bag over his shoulder. “My legs are actually feeling… not too bad right now.” He smiled like he was on a variety show, as brightly as he could but with all the sincerity he couldn't muster. He walked, and as he walked, he refused to bend to the feeling of his ankles as they began to inflame. He pushed too hard.

As if to emphasize, he stumbled. Slightly, but it was more than enough for Leeteuk to see just what was going on.

“Aish, Kyu...”

“No, really – ”

Kyuhyun tried to walk around Leeteuk, but his hyung just planted himself in front of his dongsang, rooted in spot in front of the studio door. “Teukie- hyung, c'mon, I need to –”

Kyuhyun tried to worm his way past, to push Leeteuk aside. Leeteuk wouldn't budge, not even for Kyu, who eyed him like a begging man.

Leeteuk put a hand, open and gentle, on Kyu's shoulder, black shirt soaked through with sweat. “Kyu, you know I can't let you not take care of yourself, right?”

“Leeteuk...”

Leeteuk wouldn't hear any of it, he pushed Kyuhyun back, all while grabbing his bag and phone and the odd things he was still carrying. “At least put them on,” Leeteuk said, setting everything on the floor.

Kyu pulled his wrist free, rubbing it idly because even a firm grip could make him ache. “I can do this myself!”

Leeteuk looked at him and sighed, the tired type of sigh that comes after a long month of work and no rest. He pulled up two of the three chairs in the studio, not saying anything. His eyes gestured between Kyu and the seat, and Kyu looked up to the heavens, praying his tears were in check and that maybe this wouldn't turn into the conversation he thought was about to happen.

They sat down, and although Leeteuk was looking at him, Kyu did anything to not have to acknowledge it.

Leeteuk leaned down to Kyuhyun's bag, reaching in for a second before he came back with one ankle wrap. He made another silent gesture to Kyu, and pulled his left leg over to his knee.

Kyuhyun's skin prickled in heat. It was just. Embarrassing. He wasn't a kid, needing his parents to wrap him up after a fall from a tree.

He wasn't weak.

“I can do this.”

Leeteuk was holding his foot, guiding the gauze around his heel. “But you won't.”

“I usually do.”

“That's not good enough.”

“Then what _is_? I'm… I'm doing my best!”

Leeteuk glanced up for a second. “There's a difference between working hard and punishing, Kyu-ah.”

For some reason, the few words they said should have turned the situation even more tense. It pissed Kyuhyun off, that's for sure, but…

Leeteuk was right. He was right and he was his leader, his friend, and he had a duty to tell him so. Kyuhyun couldn't stay mad at him for doing what he does best, which is caring.

“You're… you're right.”

Leeteuk smiled, scoffing quietly as he makes rounds with the material at hand, weaving a sturdy support around Kyuhyun's ankle. “I do try. And you, Kyu-ah, should too – you need to keep this on as much as possible.”

The silence recaptured them and Leeteuk was well on his way to finishing up the other ankle when Kyuhyun just couldn't ignore the elephant in the room.

“Hyung... I'm never going to be back to normal.”

“You're impatient –”

“-- Hyun – ”

“ _It's going to heal._ you just need to give it time, and treat yourself _right._ You can't expect something to heal when you're constantly using it, can you? _”_

Leeteuk's adept hands stilled, and he looked up. Kyu was fiddling with the draw string on his sweats.

“It's been a year, and I know I'm better off now than I was those first few months, but… God, I don't know. I can't do anything – I can accidentally miss a step on the way up to the dorms and my ankle, my legs won't forget it for days. I can't justify how myself or my position in this team and I –”

“That's not true, Ky—”

“-- I can't stand to see the team work so hard to make up for how _bad_ I am.”

“ _Cho Kyuhyun.”_

Kyuhyun's eyes shot up, level as they met their match in Leeteuk's. His brow was furrowed, frustration painted around his eyes and parted lips, his tense shoulders and the hands that still cradled a half-wrapped foot. Kyuhyun didn't understand how his _leader_ was frustrated – isn't Kyu the one who has to deal with this?

“Do you still doubt your place in the group?”

Kyuhyun's gaze faltered, and he was ashamed to admit that yeah, he was. He simply nodded, because the answer was simple and didn't need any more vocalization.

Leeteuk sighed, a blanket of tension rolling from him that made the entire situation worse. “Kyu…we can all see how hard you're trying, how hard you work to make this team a success. God knows you deserve to be here. But...”

There were misty notes in Leeteuk's voice that made him look up to his struggling Hyung. “Teukie-hyung…?”

Leeteuk cast a wary look in his direction, dimpled smile forced and brittle. “I just don't know if we deserve you, the way we treated you. It's been years, yet I still regret that it took a car accident to let me realize how poorly I was acting.”

And this was entirely _not_ the conversation Kyuhyun was expecting to have, and so he didn't have the words to set his hyung at ease. He was expecting a pep speech, a scolding, a something _else_. How had he managed to make Leeteuk feel as rotten as himself?

“Oh...”

Leeteuk didn't need any validation, it seemed – he looked back to the task that was, quite literally, at hand. “And I see how hard you're working, how it still isn't keeping you from beating yourself up over something none of us had control over. This accident nearly killed you and you seem to be ashamed that you can't heal fast enough. God… what a miracle it is that we're alive, that you're alive, that we made it at all. Kyuhyun-ah, look at me.”

Kyuhyun did.

“You will always belong with us. No matter where the road leads, whether or not Super Junior is here now or five years from now, you will be a part of this family we now have. I'm ashamed that I ever made you feel unwelcome.”

Kyuhyun smiled, shy and undecided all at once that it made him as small as a pebble, carried away in his hyung's words that he couldn't do much more than nod and softly say _thank you._

Leeteuk managed a perfectly wrapped ankle, and leaned over to grab the cloth hooks that were to hold it in place. He slipped them onto the fibers of the gauze. “Well. There you go,” and he tried for a laugh, succeeding in making the room feel lighter. He pat his foot gently and let Kyuhyun set it back onto solid floor again.

Kyuhyun stood, then looked to his bag and realized something. “Hyung?”

“Yeah?”

“Did you… plan on practicing tonight? I don't see your bag.”

Leeteuk's ears flushed and he laughed a bit. “No, I was actually on my way to find you. I was worried.”

Kyuhyun was a bit embarrassed, but mostly just… charmed. He smiled his brightest smile despite himself. They were walking, that slow, unsure walk people have when going in the same direction.

Not a lot more was said as they both decided to leave the studio. Leeteuk, it turned out, was beyond tired, having taken on a whole extra show at Sukira, and needed the sleep for an early dance rehearsal in the morning. Kyuhyun was guilty for a split second before deciding that he didn't force his hyung to follow him.

Still, a strange warmth in his heart pulsed with adoration, fluttering a bit every time he looked at Leeteuk.

Kyuhyun's ankles _did_ feel better, so he was going to walk back home. They were lucky they were close to the dorms, only a few streets between them and the studio. Kyuhyun turned his head down the vacant street, turning his feet home-bound.

Leeteuk was about to say something but Kyuhyun hardly had the patience to deal with it, leaning in to hug his hyung.

“Thank you,” Kyuhyun whispered, his dry throat strung tight. He felt Leeteuk's sure fingers around his waist and tucked his head into his hyung's shoulder, holding as tight as he dare, afraid he'd break himself.

He always did want to get closer, but that was for another time, or maybe never. He didn't know, but thinking about it only gave him nerves.

“Of course, Kyu-ah. You are precious, our maknae. My friend.”

Leeteuk sensed how much his youngest member needed it, and he didn't try for one second to break their contact. They were both content, in each others arms in a rare moment of broken walls and fractured esteems, that they might be okay after all.

**Author's Note:**

> Also, hell yeah Leeteuk tops.


End file.
